Cypress Hill announce joint venture with Rusko

One of America’s longest-running hip-hop crews are set to record an album with the dubstep producer Rusko. Cypress Hill have already completed an EP with him, with plans to complete a further LP.

“I want to do more of this shit,” MC B-Real told Rolling Stone magazine. Earlier this week, the California rap legends released the first single from their Cypress X Rusko project. Whereas Cypress Hill are best known for stoned, jazzy tracks such as Hits from da Bong and Insane in the Brain, the first fruit of this collaboration – Roll It Light It – is full of Rusko’s chugging cyborg beats and a vaguely wobbling bass line. “Just the style of how [he's] doing it is totally different,” B-Real said. “It would take me forever to figure out how to do any of that kind of shit.”

Leeds-born Rusko has made a name for himself with a string of dance releases, as well as tracks with MIA and an unreleased session with Britney Spears. But when the 27-year-old first met Cypress Hill, B-Real recalled, it was just to socialise. “We just were hanging out, smoking out, and it just clicked.” Another Cypress Hill member, Sen Dog, makes the context plain: “[Rusko's] a pothead too.”

Now Cypress Hill have finished work on their collaborative EP, due in April, and performed with Rusko at gigs such as last weekend’s pro-marijuana SmokeOut festival, their next step is to record a “full-blown album”. “We’re building, yo,” Sen Dog said. And Rusko is delighted to be teaming up with one of his favourite groups. “I was so shocked by the tightness and the way these guys flowed on the beats,” he said. “[Even at] such a faster tempo … it sounded exactly the same as regular Cypress flow.”

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